Discuss in 3 paragraphs the relationships you see among Last Train Home and The Story of Qiu Ju and Beijing Bicycle. I want you to discuss cinematically differences and similarities in how cities, migrant workers, the countryside, or relationships (between parent/child, neighbors, etc.) are portrayed on the screen. Discuss through at least three of the cinematic techniques we have covered in this course.
The countryside in The Story of Qiu Ju and in Last Train Home is tranquil in comparison to the city. In rural scenes, both films have minimal diegetic sound. In Last Train Home, the dinner conversations or scenes in which characters are doing chores around the house are quite a contrast to scenes such as the one in which the daughter is dancing in a club to loud music or scenes of the mass migration home in which thousands of people are speaking. In The Story of Qiu Ju, rural scenes generally only contain dialogue by one character at a time which is a contrast to the loud city noises of traffic. Similarly, in Beijing Bicycle the delivery boy from the countryside probably struggles to adjust to the dense, loud traffic around him as he rides along the street.
ReplyDeleteLife in the countryside is apparently simpler, as are the people who inhabit the countryside. The director of The Story of Qiu Ju presents this through mise-en-scene. Qiu Ju and her sister buy clothes in the city in an attempt to fit in but with no sense of what is acceptable in the city, come out looking ridiculous. With the same obliviousness, the two buy oranges and a tacky picture to present to an official. The enormous buildings in the city are quite different from the small, primitively heated homes in the countryside, where cows are more common than cars. In Last Train home, a shot of the daughter using a simple tool to cut up plants in the field in an open frame is contrasted with a shot of her working at a sewing machine amongst several other people in a closed frame with significantly more diegetic sound. The city life is strange and uncomfortable for the countryside boy in Beijing Bicycle, signified by an abrupt cut with a sudden shift in diegetic sound as he begins to take a shower he does not want in the hotel and then by an uncomfortable long take in which the confusion on his face grows as he is told he must pay for the shower he didn’t want.
Things appear to be generally more unpleasant in the city as it is represented by these three films. The director of Last Train Home uses a number of closed frames that convey a sense of claustrophobia and desperation his characters feel in the city. Such scenes as the one of characters in a crowd of people pushing to get on the train or scenes in which the members of the family are working in loud, crowded factories are quite different from the open frames of their home in the countryside. In the city, the naïve countryside boy is terrorized when he attempts to steal back his bike in Beijing Bicycle. After his first attempt, he sleeps in front of his former workplace, still covered in flour from a truck he ran into while escaping and clinging tightly to his beloved bicycle. This idea is also present in Suzhou River. The film opens with a character’s voice over narration which tells the viewer about the dreary life along the river and is accompanied by various shots of the polluted river and the poor workers along it. The wild camera movement and abrupt cuts fit the unrefined qualities the narrator attributes the city along the river with.
BOOM IN THE SHOT!
ReplyDeleteEach of the three films Last Train Home, Beijing Bicycle and The Story of Qiu Ju portray the effect of an industrialized economy on the lives of the Chinese people and on traditional chinese culture as well as how the relationships between people change and are different in different environments. In “Beijing Bicycle” and “Last Train Home” we see the destruction of family life. Jian acts in “Beijing Bicycle” as the daughter in “Last Train Home” does. We see them rebelling against their parents, thinking that the money in the household rightfully belongs to them. However, “Last Train Home” fills in the places that “Beijing Bicycle” can’t. We see the lives of migrant workers in “Last Train Home” as the lives of the daughter’s parents. This creates a more meaningful dichotomy of the family and shows how migrant work and city life affects family life on a deeper level than “Beijing Bicycle” can, seeing as its main plot follows Guo (a powerful tale as well). We get to see just how hard the parents work in “Last Train Home”, making the rebellion of the daughter (while slightly understandable), seem like betrayal. One thing that further separates the meaning that we receive from the films is the reality of “Last Train Home”. The daughter is actually screaming at the camera, and while she does this, there is a real boom in the shot.
“Beijing Bicycle” shares some similarities with “The Story of Qiu Ju” as well. The cruelty of the city is a theme that drives the stories of both of these films. We see Guo’s struggle with the lack of empathy that city goers have for him and the malicious nature of Jian. In “The Story of Qiu Ju”, Qiu Ju and Meizi are targeted because they are from the country. The extent to which the city overruns these characters has no boundaries. In the final shot of “Beijing Bicycle” we see Guo walking in slow-motion with his destroyed bike. He is still holding onto what the city has given and has tried to take away from him. Cars and people fill the frame, surrounding him in the ending sequence of the film. Similarly, the ending of “The Story of Qiu Ju” leaves Qiu Ju nearly as defeated by the city and ultimately the government. As she comes to terms with what she has done and how life outside of the city has affected her, Qiu Ju stares into the camera just as Antoine Doinel did in “The 400 Blows”.
At first glance, “Last Train Home” and “The Story of Qiu Ju” don’t really have that much in common. But they do fill in two sides of what almost seems to be one story. Without one of the films above, I feel that my Chinese film experience would not be complete. The struggles of Qiu Ju provide insight into the ways that life can be hard for the rural peoples in “Last Train Home”. Without really needing to try and sympathize I could understand both how hard life could be for a young girl such as the daughter in “Last Train Home” and the hardships that the grandmother must have endured. Both films depict the countryside as beautiful, yet poor regions of the country. Family life in the films however, is drastically different. In “The Story of Qiu Ju”, family is very dear to every character. Heck, the story revolves around the love that Qiu Ju feels for her husband and how she wishes to protect her family and perhaps future family by protecting his damaged areas. Throughout the film, we see Qiu Ju do everything she can to get justice, even hurting her family and her husband’s feelings. In “Last Train Home”, though, the daughter shows no signs of being grateful even for all that her parents sacrifice. They hardly laugh at dinner on Chinese New Year as it seems Qiu Ju’s family does at every dinner. This is shown through solemn closeups with silent, awkward sound. “The Story of Qiu Ju” juxtaposes this with long shots taken over a long duration with people walking around the house, the sound of eating and plates in the background.
All three of the films create an interesting experience and have different strong suits, but each plays an important part in exposing the challenges of living in China today.
Cities are shown in very crowded, closed shots, with a lot of kinesis from the huge amount of people. Very differently, countrysides are shown in long shots with open frames and much less kinesis. These shots have a lot smaller concentration of people and they are much more open and free. The same differences are reflected in costume design as people in the cities have much nicer clothing than those in the countryside. This shows the migration of workers, as everybody wants to be in the cities. There are larger amounts of people in cities and they all seem to have more high quality things (their clothing, buildings, etc.) and it is for these reasons that everybody wants to migrate to cities from countrysides. In The Story of Qui Ju, Qui Ju and Meizi are actually taken advantage of because their clothes expose them as country people. They are told to get new clothing while they are in the city because theirs are not up to par.
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